Israel Police Seek Christian Recruits

(photo: Israel Police) 

By Eliyahu Kamisher - February 7, 2017 

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

Police met with a representative of the Christian community in Israel on Tuesday to discuss enlisting more Christian recruits into the Israeli police force.

The meeting at National Police Headquarters in Jerusalem was held between attorney Nader Safari, a leader of the Christian community, and the head of the police’s manpower division, Asst.- Ch. Gila Gaziel. Both sides agreed to hold more meetings and develop a framework for police to visit schools in Christian communities to promote careers in the force.

There are currently 423 Christian police officers in Israel and 66 Christians doing their national service with the police and Border Police.

Zionist Union MK Eitan Broshi, who initiated the meeting, praised it as a step in diversifying police ranks.

“I see great importance in recruiting members of the Christian community,” he said in a statement. “This is another layer of full integration into Israeli society, and I thank the Israel Police for their cooperation, and I am pleased with this step.” Read More

Arab, Jewish Israeli youth leaders to teach Syrian kids in Greece

(Photo: Nicolas Economou/Shutterstock)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - February 12, 2017

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

Educators and counselors from Jewish Israeli youth movement Hashomer Hatzair and the Arab Israeli youth movement Ajyal soon will embark on a joint voluntary mission to set up a community center and school for Syrian refugee children on the Greek island of Lesbos.

The first delegation of two from each movement, plus coordinator Yair Leibel from Hashomer Hatzair, expects to leave Israel February 19 and stay for three weeks. The second delegation will be accompanied by Rnin Kahil, the Ajyal coordinator.

Members and leaders of the two youth movements have been meeting periodically for almost a decade, usually for informal dialogues.

“The problem is that after we sit and talk, we go our separate ways,” Leibel tells ISRAEL21c. “In one of our last meetings the Syrian situation arose … and there was the thought to do something together to help people who are suffering in a nation in our area, even though Syria is considered an enemy country to Israel.” Read More

The ‘never again’ imperative: Why and how Israelis are helping Syrians

 (photo: Nave Antopolsky/iAID)

By Dov Lieber - January 25, 2017

Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel 

The scale of destruction and death caused by the Syrian civil war has struck an old, dark chord in the hearts of many Israelis. For more than half a decade, a war has raged just across the border from the Jewish state, reportedly claiming the lives of nearly half a million souls and driving millions more from their homes.

The Israeli government has declared itself neutral in the complex conflict, careful not to get sucked into the violent whirlwind threatening the whole region. But Israel has not avoided the gravitational pull of the massive humanitarian catastrophe at its own doorstep.

Israel and its northern neighbor have formally been at war for seven decades. But following the outbreak of the civil war, the Jewish state has been treating Syrian casualties, including wounded fighters. More than 2,000 Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals since 2013, according to the Israeli army. Still, Israeli civilians, who are forbidden to enter Syria both under Israeli and Syrian law, have had little ability to act on any sympathy they may feel for the war-struck nation.

But two recent Israeli civilian initiatives, driven by the oath of “never again” — understood by Jews worldwide as a moral imperative to prevent any genocide after the Holocaust — are giving everyday Israelis a chance to help. Read More

Israel plans to adopt orphaned victims of Syrian war

(Photo: Gili Yaari/FLASH90)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - January 29, 2017

Originally appeared here on Israel21c

Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has approved a plan to absorb approximately 100 orphaned Syrian children who have survived the fighting in their war-torn country and are in desperate need of warm homes to provide care and rehabilitation.

Despite the fact that Israel and Syria have no diplomatic relations, Deri authorized the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority last week to begin contacting relevant agencies to facilitate the absorption of children who have survived the fighting. They are to be integrated into Arab-Israeli families.

“The situation in Syria is very harsh. Civilians have been slaughtered for years only a few dozen kilometers from Israel,” said Deri. “I have decided to order professionals in my ministry to work toward absorbing children on humanitarian grounds in order to render assistance and rescue 100 of them from the horrors and afford them good and normal lives in Israel.” Read More

Nazis’ descendants sing ‘Hatikva’ to Holocaust survivors

(Photo: Yair Sagi)

By Itay Ilnai - January 6, 2017

Originally appeared here in Ynetnews

It was an emotionally charged moment: A young German woman, the granddaughter of a Nazi officer, sitting next to a Holocaust survivor and specifying what her grandfather had done to Jews during World War II. There was no anger there, just a lot of sadness.

“Both sides of my family, my paternal side and my maternal side, were devout Nazis,” Anna Reiner confesses with a serious look on her angel face. “My great grandfather took part in burning the synagogue in the city of Darmstadt, Germany. Another grandfather was a policeman in the Krakow ghetto. Another grandfather was in the Wehrmacht, the German army, and took part in the occupation of Belarus.”

While 25-year-old Reiner describes the horrible acts committed by her grandparents, Yevgenya Chaika sits next to her and strokes her arm, calming her down. It’s quite possible that Chaika, a Belarus-born Holocaust survivor, ran into Reiner’s grandfather at some point. She was only eight months old when Hitler’s soldiers stormed eastern Belarus and jailed all the Jews in crowded ghettos. Together with her family members, she was tossed “like a sack of potatoes” into a crate on a large truck, which took her to the ghetto. She barely survived there for four years, a helpless baby. After the ghetto was liberated, the family returned home, only to discover that the house had been bombed and robbed. Read More

Amar'e In Israel: Fresh Start In The Old City

By Jon Wertheim - January 12, 2017

Originally appeared here in Sports Illustrated 

Much as Middle East politics cleave public opinion, maybe everyone can agree on this: For a spit of land roughly the size—and population—of New Jersey, Israel plays a wildly outsized role in the theater of geopolitics. Last month the U.S. abstained from a United Nations resolution condemning Israel for the construction of settlements in disputed territory. This bit of inaction triggered multiple international news cycles, an explanatory speech by Secretary of State John Kerry, a blistering rebuttal from the U.K. and, inevitably, a pointed tweet from the President-elect. 

Amid all this meshuggaas, the most famous power forward in all the land remained camped out on the perimeter, as it were. Amar’e Stoudemire lives a few blocks from the prime minister’s residence and a 25-minute walk from Jerusalem’s Old City—where so many raw nerves are exposed—but, as he says in his impossibly deep voice, “the politics aren’t for me.”

Otherwise, though, Stoudemire is thoroughly engrossed in what he calls his “adopted homeland,” maybe the most unlikely celebrity resident in Israel’s 69-year history. To some fanfare and more bemusement, Stoudemire announced last summer that he would be leaving the NBA, his workplace since 2002, to close out his gilded career in Israel, where he’d long felt a spiritual connection. Read More

Israeli patch saves baby born with intestines outside body

(Photo: Hadassah Medical Center)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - January 8, 2017

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

Ahmed and Tamam, a couple from the Arab village of Kfar Kassam 12 miles east of Tel Aviv, named their baby girl Ibtihaj (Joy) and it’s not hard to understand why.

Ibtihaj was born with a rare defect, omphalocele, in which the intestines and sometimes other organs develop outside the abdomen in a sac. The condition was noticed on a prenatal ultrasound and their local doctor advised them to have an abortion.

“We were devastated,” said Ahmed. “The doctors we saw in other big centers also recommended an abortion. While we were absorbing this news, we happened to see a TV program about a baby with a similar problem who had been saved at Hadassah Hospital. We drove to Jerusalem. Dr. Dan Arbell, a pediatric surgeon, showed us photos of children with worse conditions who were now preteens and doing fine. It turns out that our baby was not in such desperate straits as the doctors had said. He gave us hope.” Read More

Hikers find Second Temple period engravings of menorah in Judean Shephelah cistern

(photo: SA’AR GANOR/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

By Daniel K. Eisenbud - January 3, 2017

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

Hikers had a close encounter with history last weekend, while exploring a water cistern in a Judean Shephelah cave, they came across the engraving of an ancient seven-branched menorah from the Second Temple period on its bedrock walls.

Three members of the Israel Caving Club – Mickey Barkal, Sefi Givoni and Ido Meroz – said they decided to explore caves in the lowland region of South-Central Israel after hearing about their beauty off the beaten path.  

“We heard there are interesting caves in the region,” said Meroz on Tuesday. “We began to peer into them, and that’s how we came to this cave, which is extremely impressive with rock-carved niches and engravings on the wall." Read More

Jewish, Muslim Israelis cater meals for needy children

(Photo: Dualis Social Investment Fund)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - January 2, 2017

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

With a sparkle in her eye, a traditionally garbed Arab-Israeli mother asked to speak at a recent employee meeting of Cooking Coexistence (“Tavshil Hevrati” in Hebrew), a social business in northern Israel where she’d started her very first job outside the home some six weeks previously.

“We have five children and my husband earns 5,000 shekels [$1,300] a month. My salary from Cooking Coexistence now enables me to buy new clothes for my children and to pay for sending them to afterschool activities,” the woman said, as other women in the group nodded in agreement.

“I had tears in my eyes; it was a very emotional moment,” recalls Allan Chanoch Barkat, founder and chairman of the Dualis Social Investment Fund, which sponsors Cooking Coexistence and other social businesses in Israel.

Cooking Coexistence is an institutional catering business that trains and employs Arab and Jewish women over the age of 35 whom government agencies have identified as chronically underemployed or unemployed. Read More

Christians laud freedom of worship in Israel

(photo: MARK NEYMAN / GPO)

By Greer Fay Cashman - December 28, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

The annual reception hosted by President Reuven Rivlin for spiritual and lay leaders of Christian communities in Israel has not only been an opportunity for the exchange of holiday greetings, but also for Christians to air their complaints via Greek Patriarch Theophilos III.

Though couched in the most diplomatic language to soften the barb, the Patriarch’s speech invariably contained elements of the dissatisfaction of the Christian community with the status quo.

This year, with the exception of a reference to “all peoples to have their own legitimate rights to self-determination and freedom,” there was not even a hint of criticism of Israel, and even this remark could easily have related to Syria and other countries in the region, as it did not specifically mention the Palestinians.

Overtures made by Rivlin and Interior Minister Arye Deri over the past year to the leadership of the various Christian denominations have obviously borne fruit.

Addressing Rivlin directly, Theophilos said: “We take the opportunity of this holiday gathering to express our gratitude to you for the firmness with which you defend the freedoms that lie at the heart of this democracy – especially the freedom of worship.” Read More

Israeli man starts 'Good Samaritan' charity to get injured Syrian women and children to Israel for medical help

(photo: Unicef)

By Bethan McKernan - December 12, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Independent 

An Israel-based charity providing health care for displaced Syrian women and children by taking them to Israeli hospitals is breaking down stereotypes and historical enmities, one case at a time.

Mordechai ‘Moti’ Kahana, an Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist, poured his own money into helping those displaced by the Syrian civil war in 2011. He sold his company and  founded Amaliah, a New York-run charity focused on getting aid into the war-torn country., in 2013.

Mr Kahana told The Independent he was inspired to devote his time to helping the victims of Syria's complex war after a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem in 2010. "Never again - not to us and to no one else," he said.  

"I cannot let these people suffer and die and walk away from it. I just cannot do it." Read More

A special place for Arab-Israeli kids with disabilities

(photo: US Embassy in Tel Aviv)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - December 8, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

When her son was diagnosed with autism 13 years ago, “Hadijah” felt terribly alone. The stigma attached to children with disabilities in her Arab village in central Israel led Hadijah to withdraw into a world of herself and her son.

That changed only after she met Amal abu Moch, a social worker at the Family Advancement Center of the Beit Issie Shapiro Sindian Center in Kalansua, a 22,000-population Arab city in the “Triangle” district of central Israel.

Moch introduced Hadijah to other Arab parents of children with disabilities and guided her in better understanding her son’s needs and legal rights.

”Now I feel I have the tools to help my son and family,” said Hadijah, who was able to find employment once she found the appropriate care framework for her son.

The Beit Issie Shapiro (BIS) Sindian Center was founded in 2001 as Israel’s first early-intervention center for the Arab sector, at the behest of the Israeli government. Read More

Israeli biotech firm successfully reverses human bone loss in early trial

(screenshot: REUTERS)

By REUTERS - December 7, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

Israeli biotech company Bonus Biogroup's lab-grown, semi-liquid bone graft was successfully injected into the jaws of 11 people to repair bone loss in an early stage clinical trial, it said on Monday.

The material, grown in a lab from each patient's own fat cells, was injected into and filled the voids of the problematic bones. Over a few months it hardened and merged with the existing bone to complete the jaw, it said. Read More

Switching on the lights for Tanzania

By Abigail Klein Leichman - December 4, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

A solar electricity generator and storage batteries are providing constant electricity for the first time ever to Nkaiti Medical Center in Minjingu, a Tanzanian village of about 7,000 Masai subsistence farmers and cattle ranchers – thanks to the Tel Aviv University chapter of Engineers without Borders (EwB TAU).

“There’s power!!! There’s a light!!” reported team member Gal Aviram gleefully on Facebook on October 25, seven days into the group’s two-week working trip to Tanzania.

Since Minjingu is not connected to the national grid, the medical center struggled to provide basic healthcare services, lacking the ability to store vaccinations, sanitize the equipment, use electrical appliances and operate during nighttime, the students explained in their crowdfunding campaign literature.

Hoping to bring an immediate and long-term improvement to the community’s quality of life, EwB TAU students planned the project and 10 of them flew out to install the generator and batteries in cooperation with local companies and volunteers. Read More

Rare Underwater Artifact Sheds Light on Roman Tyranny Over Judea

(photo: Jenny Carmel)

By JNS - December 1, 2016

Originally appeared here in Breaking Israel News

Israeli researchers from the University of Haifa have deciphered a rare inscription found on an underwater artifact. The inscription sheds new light on Roman rule over the province of Judea prior to the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

Archaeologists uncovered a massive rectangular stone bearing the name Gargilius Antiques during a maritime excavation at the Tel Dor archaeology site, which is located south of Haifa. The inscription enabled researchers to determine with certainty that Antiques was the Roman procurator who ruled over Judea just prior to the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

“Not only did we manage to identify with certainty for the first time the name of the procurator that controlled Judea during the critical years before the Bar Kokhba Revolt, but this is only the second time that a reference to the name Judea was revealed in any inscription from the Roman period,” University of Haifa’s Prof. Assaf Yasur-Landau and Dr. Gil Gambash said in a joint statement. Read More

Israeli Muslims donate wood to rebuild Haifa synagogue

(photo: Masorti.org)

By Viva Sarah Press - December 5, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

The Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel put out an international call for donations to help the Moriah synagogue rebuild from the ashes after the recent week-long wildfires that raged across Israel.

But it was two small, local initiatives that put the damaged synagogue into the headlines.

On November 30, a group of worshippers from all faiths attended a special prayer service for the new Hebrew month of Kislev and to show support for the rebuilding of the community.

A local member posted Facebook photos of the service. One of the photos showed 20 saplings donated by a man from Baqa al-Gharbiyye, an Arab city in the Haifa district, as a gift to replace the trees in the courtyard that had been burned in the fires.

And he wasn’t the only one bearing gifts. Read More

Over 5 weeks, Israeli paramedic aids 4,000 refugees at sea

(Photo: Francesca Malavolta/MOAS)

By Viva Sarah Press - December 1, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

Israel “Izzy” Papa decided to make helping others his vocation when he was in high school. The 22-year-old paramedic with Magen David Adom (MDA) started volunteering at Israel’s national emergency medical service and disaster-relief organization as a teen “because it was cool.”

“I saw some people in really awful situations and I realized that someone needs to help. I felt like I need to do it. That’s what I want to do; help people,” he tells ISRAEL21c. “It’s also so satisfying. When you save someone and he gets to live another day, that is a crazy feeling. The best feeling I’ve ever had in my life.”

Papa hit the headlines in Israel recently after becoming the first paramedic, and the first Israeli, to join the Red Cross and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) vessel in the Mediterranean Sea. Read More

Children unite in dance for Syrian refugees

(photo: iamchildproject.com)

By Viva Sarah Press - November 20, 2016

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

There’s a new dance routine on social-media sites that has five catchy poses and one enormously powerful message of support. The #iamchild dance-therapy routine is part of a project in support of Syrian children affected by ongoing civil war.

The routine was created by Israeli-Turkish journalist Michal Bardavid to give emotional and moral support to millions of the world’s refugee children.

In addition to being an international correspondent for China Central Television, Bardavid is a psychological counselor and a certified dance therapist. After meeting hundreds of Syrian children in refugee camps on the Turkish-Syrian border, she created a motivational dance exercise made up of five positively worded sentences accompanied by five movements to show the kids that someone cares. Read More

Ethiopian-Israeli Beauty Queen: World Must Learn How ‘Unique and Diverse’ Jewish State Is

By Barney Breen-Portnoy - November 4, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Algemeiner

The world must learn how “unique and diverse” the Jewish state is, an Ethiopian-Israeli beauty queen told The Algemeiner on Friday, amid a week-long US college campus speaking tour.

“There are Americans who I meet who are surprised that I’m Jewish and that I was an officer in the IDF and won Miss Israel,” 25-year-old Yityish ‘Titi’ Aynaw said in an interview with The Algemeiner while in New York City. “It’s weird for them. They don’t understand my story. Everything good that I represent, they don’t realize that these are things that can happen in Israel.”

Aynaw — whose current US tour was organized by the Jewish National Fund and Media Watch International — was born in the Gondar region of Ethiopia. Left parentless at the age of 12, she and her brother soon moved to Israel to live with their grandparents in the Mediterranean coastal city of Netanya. After finishing high school, Aynaw enlisted in the IDF and served as an officer in the Military Police Corps. Read More

Fleeing France, an African Jewish family makes aliyah

(Photo: JTA / Courtesy of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews)

By Cnaan Liphshiz - November 4, 2016

Originally appeared here in The Times of Israel 

JTA — As a Jewish family originally from the Ivory Coast, Amy and George Camara and their four children felt somewhat immune to the rising anti-Semitic thuggery in France.

The Camaras, relieved to leave their war-torn African country, settled in the northern French city of Lille in 2012. Because they fit no one’s Jewish stereotype, they said they were able to live as Jews without fear — despite, in recent years, the rise in attacks on French Jews from a small segment of Muslim extremists.

But the Camaras soon discovered that belonging to both the African and Jewish minorities also came with its own set of challenges, said Amy, the 53-year-old daughter of an Ivorian father and a French Jewish Holocaust survivor. The difficulties prompted the family to again pack their suitcases and leave France — for Israel, the only country where this unique Jewish family says it can live comfortably according to their identity.

For the Camaras, whom Amy describes as “proudly Jewish but not too observant,” life in France wasn’t “truly comfortable,” she said.

Precisely because no one from their immediate environment thought they might be Jewish, “people, even friends, would say the most awful lies about Israel and Jews in our presence,” Amy said. Read More